As a fifth-year apprentice, Jordan would never be privy to the conversations that the venerable mages of the Collegium would have had the day the sun didn’t rise. They’d cloistered themselves away in the Chancellors office while the trumpets had woken everyone else as always. However, by the time the students had risen, there was neither a sun nor classes to greet them. Instead, he’d gotten dressed in silence and waited in the auditorium along with everyone else for answers that would never come. Like his friends, though, he could imagine what it was those grey beards had said, though. From the way they spoke in hushed tones while they all sat together at their favorite bar, Jordan’s friends had even more vivid imaginations than he did.

Oh, for the morning, the orders had come down eventually, and they’d all buttoned up the school as tightly as possible to prepare for the second coming or whatever shoe was going to drop next. However, when nothing happened, they’d eventually opened the gates after dinner to allow for reprovisioning and other pressing tasks.

He, along with all of the lads, had taken that opportunity to go out and have a pint or two. They’d have to be back before midnight when they sealed everything up again, of course, but they were wizards after all, so there was no real danger. They could always teleport back to their rooms if worst came to worst.

Well, some of them could, he thought to himself with a smile as he took another drink of the warm beer in front of him and looked around the table. Artem and Besmr certainly could. Jordan knew he’d never be as good as either of them when it came to casting spells, but he’d made his peace with that years before. Thom though… he was even more hopeless than Jordan, and if not for the fact that his uncle was a duke, the man surely would have been given his walking papers some time ago.

That was fine, though. The world took all kinds, and for now, they were blowing off a little steam at the Dragon’s Flagon while they tried to pretend that the world was still normal. They traded gossip and reassured the locals that the world wasn’t ending. The former was much more fun, but the latter continued to dominate the conversation even after he’d sprung for a round for everyone just to try to get everyone to calm down.

Abenend, for better or worse, was the final destination for third and fourth sons, as much as anyone who might have actual magical talent. Sadly, Jordan was in the former category and not the latter. His two older brothers would ensure that he’d never hold the title of Baron or rule of Sedgim manor, and sadly, they had no smaller fiefs to give him. At 21, he had no good marriage prospects, and his skill with spells was erratic, as his teachers had so gently put it.

So, slowly but surely, he was coming to terms with the fact that he would have to make his way in this world with his mind instead of his name or his arcane talents. That was fine. His writing was good, his sums were excellent, and his alchemy was acceptable. Once all this was done, he had no worries that he’d be able to find some lesser house in a variety of ways to keep his pockets full when he was one day forced to take his leave from this cozy life a year or two from now when the money ran out.

For now, his family provided him a healthy stipend at least, so he had to be grateful for that small blessing. Even if the world was ending.

“I’m telling you - the gods have not abandoned us,” Thom said loudly. “It’s just a peculiar astral phenomenon called eclipsing. Something large stands between us and the sun, and it blocks—”

“What’s large enough to block out Sidrrim’s light that isn’t a dark god?” one of the villagers shouted, interrupting his friend.

They’d gone round and round about this several times now, but it was clear to Jordan that no one had a good answer for why there had been a day without a sun. They’d discussed it from spiritual, astral, and philosophical perspectives, but all of them had told Jordan only one thing: despite being some of the smartest and most educated people in the whole world, the teachers of the Collegium had no idea where the sun had gone, and to Jordan that was the most troubling answer of all.

He was just working up the courage to propose that to his friends when the first explosion echoed out into the night. They all looked at each other, wondering why a spell of serious power had been cast, but before they had a chance to discuss whether it had been a flame strike or something worse like eradication, there was a crack of lightning somewhere closer. After that, they were up like a shot, rushing out the door like everyone else to see what was going on.

Abenend was not a large town. In truth, it was smaller than the Magesterium Collegium that it served. The difference was that the Collegium was a giant old fortress packed full of students, teachers, and reagents from across the world, while Abenend was two main streets, some craftsmen, groceries, and innkeepers, along with a few hundred houses spread around the institution of magical learning, and right now it was burning.

No, that was wrong, he realized as he continued to study the situation. It was the army that was marching on it that was burning, and the flames only made it seem like the Collegium had caught fire.

“Would Siddrim’s Church really try to take advantage of this chaos to attack us?” Artem asked.

No one answered, but just thinking about it made Jordan feel sick. A surprise attack by the forces of light wasn’t impossible since it was their god that controlled the sun. That theory only lasted until zombies began to spill out into the main street and start shambling their way like a human tide.

No, it couldn’t be the church, Jordan realized. They’d never abed this sort of evil. It was they who accused the Mages of Abened even though such dark magics were strictly forbidden.

As one, he and all the other mages began to cast the most powerful or appropriate spells they knew as the tide of zombies approached. Shards of ice and sprays of fire clashed in the night as the townspeople ran for their lives, though it did not escape Jordan’s notice that they did so almost as much to escape the destruction the mages were causing as the zombies that were approaching.

Over the next few minutes, Jordan couldn’t pay much attention to the fireworks that were happening in the background. It was all he could do to try to remember the words and gestures to simple spells like spray of flames and castigation as they struck down the undead by the dozen. It occurred to him only slowly that no matter how many they killed, though, there were always more behind the last rank. They were getting closer, too.

Soon, they were too close, and his friends, along with a few townspeople who were brave enough to fight or too afraid to flee, were collapsing back into the tavern and baring the doors and the windows shut with anything they could. As grown men around him started to weep from fear, Jordan realized that running might have been a better option.

“Where did Thom and Besmr go?” Jordan asked Artem, realizing belatedly that they were down to only two mages left in a room full of people that could muster no more than a dagger or a wine bottle should the dead manage to break down the door.

“They left,” Artem said quietly. “Just like we should probably think about doing…”

“We can’t just leave these people!” Jordan said as much because it was the right thing to do as he was because he was terrified of his spell, which was the only way out.

Arten just shrugged at that and began to cast a warding spell to try to shore up their barricades, leaving Jorden to reassure the defenders that this would all be over soon.

“We’ve killed at least a hundred already, and the Collegium has to have killed another thousand, right? How many more can there be?”

The answer turned out to be at least one more because no sooner had he said those fateful words than another shadow larger than any three men combined loomed outside the partially blocked windows. Everyone held their breath, hoping it would move past them, but they weren’t that lucky.

It stopped in front of the door, and once the big one started bashing down the door, though, all hope was lost. It did more damage than all the other zombies combined. It smashed the thing to flinders with its great nobby club and the jagged shards of wood that sprayed across the room, stabbing several men he knew, including the barkeep, and they quickly fell over into pools of their own blood.

Jordan began to enchant the words to spray the dead with fire, but he stopped partway through and started to cast a lightning spell instead so he wouldn’t hurt too many other people while he was trying to save them. Even as the spell went off, though, he could feel that he fumbled it, and it only caused the large zombie to stagger a moment while the three closest to it dropped to the ground smoke.

“Alright, Artem hit it with…” Jordan’s words trailed off as he looked to his left and saw that his friend had vanished. He didn’t know if he’d run up the stairs in all of the commotion or use a spell to escape. He just knew that it stung and that somehow, some way, he was the last person here who could help these people.

That was cold comfort as he saw the armor-clad behemoth striding towards him and cutting down the men between the two of them like they weren’t even there. That was when Jordan ran. He told himself that he’d done his best but that they’d need to regroup upstairs, but the truth was simpler than that. He was terrified, and one look in the soulless black eye sockets of the monster advancing on him had told him that he was going to die.

He’d pray for forgiveness in the morning if there was ever going to be another morning. For now, he just tripped over the stairs as he took them two at a time. From the windows, he saw sprays of light still emanating from the Collegium’s towers and upper floors, so they hadn’t fallen yet. It didn’t look good, though.

Jordan had seen demonstrations of powerful magics before, but never so many at once. Gouts of fire were raining down on zombie hordes, momentarily illuminating them before they were replaced by another wave of death. Flashes of red and white were the most common, but occasionally, Jordan saw the violet wards of high-level arcane magics flare as well.

Even as he slammed the door in one of the smaller rooms and barred it, he wondered if that would be enough. He was not a strong mage, and the few spells he’d already cast had taxed him greatly. If he were to cast a distant step, and then the Collegium’s defenses fell, what would he do then?

The door thumped as something outside banged against it, and Jordan realized that he’d worry about that later. He needed to focus. The spell he needed was dangerous and took several minutes; it also just happened to be only barely within his abilities to cast it in the first place. Teleportation magic was very volatile and dangerous, and he’d scrambled many an egg in his attempt to send them across the room.

So, he turned all that out and began to recite the words as he pictured his threadbare room, only a thousand yards from here. Trying to ignore the sounds of danger and death around him was almost impossible, though, and at the last moment, he almost abandoned the spell to try again. He would have to if the zombies hadn’t succeeded in breaking the door down. Instead, feeling the magic straining inside of him and only just barely holding it together, he whispered the final syllables before the monster could rip his throat out.

He did not find himself in the Collegium, though, or indeed, anywhere in the town of Abendend. Instead, Jordan found himself in a dark, muddy field with absolutely no idea where he was.

“Great,” he muttered to himself. “Just great. What in all the hells am I supposed to do now?”